Government Must Act on Foreign Scholar's Visa

By Rachel B. Levinson

Citing the concern of the AAUP and other organizations, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in June issued a decision sharply critical of the government’s conduct in failing to act on the visa application of noted Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan and required the government to make a decision on the pending application by September 21, 2006. The AAUP joined two other national organizations in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union that challenged the constitutionality of a key provision of the USA Patriot Act, which was used to bar Ramadan from this country as he prepared to take up a tenured appointment at the University of Notre Dame’s Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. The AAUP and its co-plaintiffs, the American Academy of Religion and the PEN American Center, each seek to bring Ramadan to the United States to meet with organization members (see “AAUP Joins Lawsuit in Ideological Exclusion Case” on pages 17–19 of the March–April issue of Academe).

The court decision made clear that if the government fails to supply a legitimate explanation for its exclusion of Ramadan and the court determines that the plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights have been violated, the government may not continue to exclude Ramadan from the United States.

The court’s decision specifically noted that the AAUP had criticized the government’s revocation of Ramadan’s visa. The AAUP has affirmed many times that the free circulation of scholars is an integral part of academic and intellectual freedom and that the unfettered search for knowledge is indispensable for a free and orderly world.

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